Six Years in the Bush: Or, Extracts from the Journal of a Settler in Upper Canada, 1832-1838 |
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Six Years in the Bush: Or, Extracts from the Journal of a Settler in Upper ... Susanna Moodie,Thomas Need No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
acres afterwards appearance arrived bark beaver boat buck Bush camp canal canoe capital chase Chemong Chippewas cholera clearing Cobourg cold colony comfortable companions cross the lake deer district dollars emigrants England erection excellent fall farm fell fish forest friends garden gentleman habit hunting Indian John Colborne laborers Lake Chemong lake Ontario lake shore lake Simcoe Lake Sturgeon land light logs manner maskalongy ment Mohawk month morning neighbourhood neighbours Newcastle district night oxen party passed Peterboro Pigeon Lake pigeons pretty procured Province purchase racter rain rapid Rice lake rifle river rude saw mill scarcely season settle settlement shanty sleigh snow soon spirits storm stream sugar thriving tion took Toronto town trees tribe Upper Canada Verulam township village weather wheat wild turkey wind winter woodmen woods Yankee young
Popular passages
Page i - COLONIZATION is not only a manifest expedient, but an imperative duty on Great Britain. God seems to hold out his finger to us over the sea.
Page 107 - ... and embarks it in a saw mill ; this induces many to come into the neighbourhood, from the facility it offers for building. Then, as the settlement increases, some bold man is persuaded to erect a grist or flour mill, which again serves as an attraction ; a growing population requires the necessaries of life at hand ; stores...
Page 105 - The most experienced among them is placed to regulate the heat, which ought to be tolerably equal, and round her the rest of the party are busied in watching the progress of 'boiling, and arranging the contents of the kettles, and finally when by steady boiling the consistency of sugar is obtained, in delivering it over to the others, whose business it is to keep stirring the boiling mass as it gradually cools and settles . . ." The white settler was quick to follow the Indian's lead, and to improve...
Page 70 - ... pigeons, furnished us with an excellent supper. Towards evening the wind lulled; and the men being now less alarmed for their personal safety exerted themselves with such good will that before night-fall we brought our boat safely to anchor at Verulam, and I leapt ashore on my own territory. . . . August 20. — Went to Peterboro'; where a rapid improvement had taken place during the summer — new houses had been built, new shops opened, and a large influx of inhabitants had arrived. I had been...
Page 99 - There was a noble maskalongy, supported by the choice parts of a couple of bucks; then for entremets, we had beaver tails (a rare delicacy), partridges, wild fowl and squirrels. My garden supplied the dessert, which consisted of melons, raised from English seed, but far exceeding their parent stock in size and flavour, plums, strawberries and apples; there were grapes too, rich in hue and beautiful in appearance, but unhappily tasteless to the palate as the fabled fruit of the Dead Sea shore. The...
Page 98 - ... since the purchase, but with more than the usual celerity of this wonder-working country a vast deal had been effected. A broad mill-dam was thrown across the stream at the head of the cascade to stem the current and conduct it over the wheels of the mill; the green meadow, which for countless ages had afforded the richest pasture to the wild deer, was now browsed by horses and cattle; and where the little copse of oak had stood, nothing remained but blackened stumps, interspersed by rude unsightly...
Page 104 - As I was slowly moving along, a huge fish made a stroke at the gaily-painted paddle : he took me so entirely by surprise that I lost my equilibrium, and nearly upset the boat; and instead of spearing him, which I might easily have done, I was only thankful when he discovered his error and released his hold.
Page 49 - ... half the distance when the wheels sunk so deep in a slough that two hours more were taken up in extricating them. The next two miles were accomplished with still more difficulty, for we were obliged repeatedly to make a corduroy, or in other words to cut stakes and lay them horizontally for the wagon to pass over; but even this scheme failed at last; and at a mile distant from the lake our teamster declared the waggon inextricably fixed; our only chance was then to loosen the horses and load...
Page 47 - I gladly accepted his proposal, and found myself amply repaid for the trouble, by a lively dance, good music, and excellent supper. The ladies of Upper Canada, like their sisters of the Northern States, are strikingly handsome in early youth, and pleasing and natural in their manners : about thirty couple of dancers assembled, who kept up the ball until nearly daylight.
Page 107 - The erection of a saw mill is always the first marked event in the formation of a settlement in the Bush. At first, some one or two adventurers, possessed of a little capital, purchase a few acres of land on the bank of a river or stream, where, in the provincial idiom, there is good water power ; two or three rude huts or shanties are erected, and a small clearing made in the forest ; by degrees, others are attracted to the spot : the original settler, meanwhile, has turned a little money, and embarks...